We again had a stand at the NZ Institute of Quarrying Conference. This year the Quarry Conference was held in Blenheim. We were one of nearly 60 exhibitors so there was a lot for the delegates to look at. This year we decided not to take down one of our drones or the new sonar boat but rather we had the Virtual Reality headset, the HTC Vive, as our drawcard. Using photogrammetry data captured during a stockpile survey, people could take a virtual tour of a small quarry in the South Waikato. With the headset on you feel as if you are right there in the quarry. We only had a small area to move around in but virtual teleport points placed around the site enabled people to explore the entire 3 Ha site. Being completely immersed within the virtual environment, standing on the edge of the highwall gave the same “oh wow” feeling as if you were there for real. The ultimate aim is that clients will be able to take a virtual walk around their pits and see how proposed design benching, landscaping and new plant will look before committing to the real thing. We will also be looking at Augmented Reality as a way for Quarry Operators and others to be able to view their proposed works out on site.

We have also purchased a small remotely controlled sonar boat. This system collects data using a sonar pod mounted underneath with our GPS to collect the positional data. This will be used to obtain levels of the base of dams, lakes, tailings ponds and streams. Such a survey would usually require a survey team to be out on the water and all the inherent risk and H&S requirements which would go with that. The sonar boat enables us to capture a denser number of points than before without being exposed to the water hazard.